


so cold, but so sweet

by misprinting



Series: will you lay a trap for me? [2]
Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: (off-screen) - Freeform, Asexual Character, Consent Issues, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 09:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16594901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misprinting/pseuds/misprinting
Summary: Mid-fight, Tommy realises he’s completely in love with Lovett.runs parallel to part vi ofhands like an ocean.





	so cold, but so sweet

**Author's Note:**

> i had to write this to be able to finish _hands like an ocean_ because i am a dumbass, so i hope you enjoy the glut of words tonight.

Mid-fight, Tommy realises he’s completely in love with Lovett.

Lovett is between Ronan and him, he’s sleepy, and he’s just said he needs _space_. Tommy feels like Lovett just reached into his chest, pulled his heart out, and is holding it, barely beating, cupped in his uncaring hands. And he thinks, _fuck. You can’t need space. I love you._

Once Tommy can bear to look at either Lovett or Ronan again, he looks over to Ronan and sees a familiar desperation echoed in his eyes.

They don’t talk about it during that week. They give Lovett whatever space he needs and try to hold on to any pieces he’ll still let them have, and it feels like heartbreak by a thousand cuts, but they don’t talk about it until Friday night.

Lovett leaves with kisses for both of them. They have rules written down for the two days they’ll be apart. They have each other and an empty space beside them.

Ronan, hand still on the door where he’d shut it behind Lovett, sighs deeply, either in sadness or relief.

Tommy pulls him in close. He wraps his arms around Ronan’s chest, bringing Ronan’s face into the hollow of his neck.

“I love you,” Tommy tells him. Ronan goes limp against him, arms holding onto Tommy just as tightly as Tommy’s are to him, as Tommy touches Ronan’s hair and breathes in as deeply as he can.

Ronan pushes him back after a few moments. “We are being over-dramatic,” he tells them both.

Tommy raises an eyebrow, rubbing his hands up and down Ronan’s arms in absent-minded comfort.

“We are,” Ronan tells him, insistent. He pulls away for real, walking to the kitchen. He busies himself making them coffee while Tommy watches from the doorway and doesn’t tell him it’s too late to drink caffeine.

“It doesn’t feel like we are,” Tommy says finally. “It feels like I’m in love with him and, meanwhile, he’s halfway to wanting to break up.”

Ronan puts everything out of his hands down on the counter in a clatter of metal and coffee grounds getting spilled across the surface.

“Did you tell me you love me?” he asks Tommy. “At the door?”

Tommy meets his startled look with a smile. One he can’t quite seem to get to become a smile, all the way. “I did,” he says. “I love you.”

The most beautiful smile breaks across Ronan’s face. He closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, they’re bright with happiness.

“I love you too,” he tells Tommy, his voice soft and conspiratorial. There’s also a thread of gratitude in there. Ronan takes the two steps he needs to take to get into Tommy’s space, touching Tommy’s chest and cheek and kissing him soundly.

Their lips are thoroughly bruised, though they’ve pulled apart and tidied up the mess on the bench, when Ronan says, “Lovett should’ve been here for that.”

“Would he want to be?” Tommy asks. The words have tumbled out of his mouth before he's finished thinking them.

Ronan grabs onto him, catching ahold of Tommy’s hip and squeezing.

“Yes,” Ronan tells him. “I know this has got you torn up, but don’t think Lovett’s problem is that he doesn’t care enough.”

Tommy folds his arms, leaning against the counter. “Are you sure?”

There’s an argument to be made that Tommy has known Lovett for three years while Ronan’s only really known him for three months. Tommy doesn’t plan to be the one to make it. He knows he’s not completely successful at hiding the thought when Ronan’s look turns to a steel of determination.

“I am,” Ronan tells him definitively.

Tommy looks away.

“Okay, then,” he says. “We’ll just have to tell him. Figure out a way to make it up to him.” He loops his arms over Ronan’s shoulders, pressing their foreheads together. “For now, though,” he says. “I’m going to tell you again.” He kisses Ronan, feeling the tension in him through his lips. “I love you.”

“It’s a good line,” Ronan tells him, smiling. “It’ll get you far.”

Tommy grins despite the barely settled roiling in his stomach. “Good,” he says. “In that case: I love you.”

Ronan laughs. He bites Tommy’s chin in recompense, then says, “yeah, yeah.” He pushes Tommy back through the kitchen door. “Take me to bed, then, loverboy.”

And Tommy does like to follow instructions.

~~~

Ronan’s already at the Herald the next morning when Tommy has a conversation with Favs that flips Tommy's view in a completely unexpected way.

_my parents are driving me crazy_ , reads a text from Lovett that simultaneously makes Tommy smile and makes him want to type back: well, maybe don’t leave us ever again, idiot. Because now Tommy’s admitted he loves Lovett to himself, he just can’t stop being a creep about it.

“Morning,” Favs says, shuffling in to get himself some cereal, yawning wide.

“Hey,” Tommy replies. He takes a bite of his toast and types out, Say hi for me! And that shouldn’t be the end of it, but what should come next isn’t coming to Tommy. He types I miss you and deletes it. He types come back and deletes that, too.

Favs brushes a hand against Tommy’s shoulder on his way past him to sit opposite him at the table. “Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

Tommy exhales, long and slow.

“Are you moping because Lovett’s gone?” Favs asks, smiling teasingly.

Tommy types out I’m definitely not moping because you’re not here and deletes it. “I’m moping because Lovett’s confusing,” he tells Favs.

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” Tommy tells him. He puts his phone down, offering an apologetic smile. “You don’t want to hear this.”

“No. It’s okay,” Favs tells him. He takes a big mouthful of cereal and chews it thoughtfully for a few moments. “I can hear it,” he says. Then, when Tommy hesitates a little too long, bracing himself, he adds, “c’mon. What’s been going on this past week, Tom?”

Tommy picks at the wood on the table in front of him. He lets the question hang in the air for a moment before acknowledging to himself that it’s a shitty form of avoidance, and finally says, “I’d like to say I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Favs _hmms_ , considering him. He gives Tommy a few moments to say something else, but when he doesn’t he asks, “how come Ronan slept over last night?” He takes a big mouthful of cereal and speaks around it to add, “I mean, is Lovett okay with that?”

Tommy drops his phone to the table with a clatter. “Of course he is,” he says, not managing to keep the hurt out of his voice. “We’d never do it if he weren’t.”

Favs nods readily enough, at least. “Okay. Good,” he says. “I know.” He hesitates for a moment, just long enough that Tommy gives him a _spit it out_ gesture. Favs makes a face and says, “you’ve just not been yourself this week. I was worried.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, intelligently. “Sorry.” He takes a drink of his coffee just for something to do with his hands. “You don’t have to be. We’ll figure it out.”

Favs watches him. He bites his lip, worrying at it before asking, “is it that bad?”

“No,” Tommy says before he’s given it any thought. When that doesn’t sit right — when his stomach continues to churn, low-level, like he’s getting used to it — he says instead, “Maybe.” He sighs. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Well,” Favs says after a pause of several moments. “That’s Lovett for you.” He takes his bowl to the sink, busying himself as he adds, his voice soft and fond the way he gets sometimes when he talks about Lovett or Emily, when they’re not around, “he really likes you, though. I was half-convinced he was never going to give it another go, you know.” He throws Tommy a smile over his shoulder. “I think he was, too.”

Tommy tries to parse his way through that for a moment as Favs washes up the dishes that’ve piled up in the sink. “What do you mean?” he asks.

Favs tosses him a dish towel, bumping shoulders with him as Tommy joins him at the sink to dry and put away. “I thought he'd been scared off the whole thing,” Favs tells him, because clearly that’s meant to mean something.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tommy tells him.

The look Favs gives him is so confused, Tommy briefly wonders if they’re even talking about the same person. But of course they are.

“Have you guys not talked about your… y’know. Pasts?” Favs asks, hands stilling in the sudsy water. “Your romantic pasts, I mean.”

Tommy laughs, more at how awkward Favs makes it sound than anything. Lovett would make a joke about not being able to take the Catholic out of the boy, but Tommy just says, “in bits and pieces, sure, but I still don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

Favs nods, not looking at him. “Probably best if you forget I said anything, then,” he tells his hands. He hesitates, scrubbing at a pan Lovett had burnt something onto three days ago and ignored since. He puts it down in the water for a moment to say, “you should ask him, though.”

Tommy watches Favs’ profile, absently drying a glass for so long he’s really just polishing it at this point. “Okay, I will,” he promises.

Favs nods, smiling. And after a moment of scrubbing, he adds, “It’s just…” He nearly cuts himself off, ultimately pushing through to say, “I don’t think it’s saying too much to say that I was… surprised how quick you guys were sleeping together. So was Em.”

He flicks a quick, inscrutable looks Tommy’s way before changing the subject.

Maybe Tommy shouldn’t let him, but there’s something about the very careful way Favs had chosen his words that tells Tommy he needs to let it go for now.

So he does, but he doesn’t stop turning it over in his mind.

~~~

Tommy goes to Ronan that night. He cooks for them both while Ronan works on a deadline, then they go to Ronan’s room.

“Okay, I’m done,” Ronan tells him, shutting his laptop and sitting next to Tommy on his bed with a flourish. He takes Tommy’s hand. “So. Now you can tell me what’s kept you so distracted all night.”

Tommy huffs a laugh.

“Can’t I just be someone who lets his boyfriend get on with what he needs to do?” he asks, looking at their hands.

“Sure,” Ronan says. He nudges Tommy with his elbow, adding, “but I don’t think your brain’s slowed down for a minute since you got here. It’s not hard to tell when there’s something you’re fretting over.”

Tommy nods. He sighs. He says, “you really shouldn’t be able to gang up on me when Lovett’s not even here.”

“Ah,” Ronan says, like he’s cracked the case. “So it _is_ about Lovett.”

Tommy hopes the look he gives Ronan tells him soundly what he thinks of how he’s laughing at him; Ronan continues to smirk, but does twine his fingers through the short hairs at the back of Tommy’s head, scritching them soothingly.

“Favs said something. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it,” Tommy says after the moment he takes to find the right words. Ronan makes an interested noise, waiting Tommy out. “He said Em and him were surprised how quickly the three of us started, um. Having sex,” Tommy tells him.

Ronan frowns; it’s in contrast with how he says, lightly, “bit judgemental of them.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, laughing. “I don’t think that’s what he meant. But he didn’t say anything else. Just that they were surprised and that we should ask Lovett about his ‘romantic past,’” Tommy says, making quotation marks in the air.

Ronan takes a deep breath in as if he’s counting it out, exhaling heavily. “That’s ominous,” he says.

“Yeah.”

Tommy plays with Ronan’s hand, tracing its shape with his fingers, as Ronan turns his head into Tommy’s neck and breathes for several minutes. Thinking, presumably.

“I have wondered,” Ronan says, turning his head to look down at their hands along with Tommy, his head resting on his shoulder. “Sometimes,” Ronan continues. “The way he reacts, you know?”

Tommy nods, slowly. “What’re you thinking?”

Ronan shrugs. “I think… I told myself I should trust him to talk to us if and when he wanted to,” he says. He brings Tommy’s hand up to his lips and kisses it, the back of his hand and then his palm. “I think we shouldn’t assume anything,” he says.

“But…?”

Tommy watches Ronan’s face; watches how blank it’s gone and waits for Ronan to lean past his mask for him again. Ronan pulls back just enough to kiss Tommy’s jaw, settling again as a warm weight on Tommy's shoulder.

“He… likes to watch,” Ronan says, slowly, laying out a case. “But after I brought it up he stopped asking if that was okay; I have to tell him that’s what he’s going to be doing.”

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees.

“He likes a physical reminder that we aren’t going to kick him out of bed,” Ronan continues.

Tommy nods. He’s never liked Lovett’s reasoning for wanting to be held. Now it settles on a slowly growing pile of doubt, acidic and heavy on Tommy’s stomach.

“He freaked out, before that first time. He ran away. I rationalised it as being about the commitment, or maybe worry over dating his best friend.” Ronan tightens his hand around Tommy’s. “I think… we should have stopped. We should have pushed him on it.”

A sound comes out of Tommy that’s best described as wounded, but after a moment he says, “yeah, maybe. But he was enthusiastic. So were we.”

“Was he?” Ronan asks.

“ _Yes_.” Tommy casts around for a moment for a way to lighten the load that seems to have dropped on Ronan’s shoulders in the course of a five minute conversation. “We should have suggested going slow, sure, but if he was freaking out, then he didn’t talk to us about it. Like you said, he didn’t trust us with it.”

“That doesn’t make it his fault,” Ronan says, the bite of an edge coming into his voice.

“Yeah,” Tommy agrees. “But it does make it a bit less _our_ fault.”

Ronan shakes his head, but doesn’t actively argue. Just sits for a moment, thinking, before saying, “when he said he needed space, he said we were more ‘into some stuff’ than he is.

Tommy nods. It’s the phrase that’s been running through his head, too, all day.

“And the _only_ two things he vetoed for us without him,” Ronan continues, his voice morphing into a quiet, furious thing. “Was what we did as a first date and dating other people. Which suggests the ‘stuff’ we're more into might not be the romantic stuff.”

“You think Favs knows something that would make all that make a lot more sense,” Tommy conjectures.

“Maybe,” Ronan admits. “I don’t think we should have sex with him until we know.”

Tommy nods again. But then says, “I don’t know how we ask him.”

Ronan takes his phone out of his pocket, finding Lovett’s number. He types, **What are your plans when you get back to campus, Love?** He hesitates over sending it for several moments, scrolling either side of the question mark as if second guessing the endearment.

Tommy kisses his temple. “Send it,” he suggests. “It's cute.”

The back of Ronan's neck pinks. “He hates it,” Ronan says, in a voice which says, _except I know that's a lie_. He presses the button to send it, biting his lip.

To Tommy, he says, “with how things are, I don’t think we should ask him straight out.” Tommy frowns, not bothering to hide his concern over that idea, but Ronan says, “I know, but. He’s so skittish with us.”

Tommy, taking a moment to weigh the choice up, finally nods. “Okay,” he says. “So what do we do?”

“Let’s just not fuck next week,” Ronan says. Tommy’s eyebrows raise and he tilts his head to look him in the eyes. “We can come up with excuses, right?” Ronan asks. “And we’ll just… see.”

“See what?” Tommy asks.

Ronan offers him a lopsided smile. “Maybe we’ll hardly see him, and what he meant by needing space was that he wants to break up with us or be friends with benefits. Or maybe we’ll get him back.”

Lovett’s text comes through just then, reading, _i get in at 7ish. can we (3) go get pizza? or order in? i’m not even really invested in the pizza, honestly_

Tommy reads it over Ronan’s hair, then hides his face in it as he thinks, _oh, maybe_ , and begins to hope.

“He’s trying to fatten me up,” Tommy complains rather than voice any of the other stuff he’s thinking, making Ronan shake in laughter. He licks his lips, then pushes Ronan down with him into the bed. He ends up flat on his stomach, legs tangled with a laughing Ronans’ legs, arms around his waist, and his face crushed into Ronan’s neck. “Tell him I miss him,” he admits to Ronan’s flushed skin.

Ronan taps away for a moment. As he stills, Tommy comes out of his nestled spot next to Ronan’s pulse point to read his messages: **Tommy says you’re trying to make him get fat. Since that’s not a no, yes, we’d love to.** and **We miss you.**

Taking hold of Ronan’s phone, Tommy puts it on the bedside table. “Okay,” he says. “Now let’s get down to it.”

“What?” Ronan asks, laughing, probably at Tommy acting like he’s smoother than he is.

Tommy kisses his jaw; his neck. He kisses his cheekbone.

“Well,” he says. “We’ve got a lot of sex to have if we’re going to be celibate all week.”

Ronan laughs. “We do, do we?”

Tommy kisses him, braced above him on his forearms. He pulls back, kissing his chin quickly, before meeting his eyes and saying, “yeah, if that’s okay with you.”

Ronan smiles.

“That’s okay with me,” he replies.


End file.
